Saburo is a normal kid—or at least he tries to be, but the bizarre finds its way to him with alarming precision. First, a weirdo with a samurai haircut clad in just undies is hanging around his town, then his father builds an honest-to-god time machine that looks like a giant metal smoking pipe. A quick test of the pipe time machine flings the poor boy into the outer realms of space where robots, space captains and a girl who looks very similar to a friend at home await him. Keep all limbs in the pipe and prepare for a funny, fast-paced, and very bizarre adventure in the Pipe Machine!

An ongoing 6-volume series in Japan!

This is a fun, weird little manga about time travel, filled with lots of goofy occurrences that don’t quite make sense (but I’m sure will later).

The story takes place in 1980 during winter and Saburo, a twelve-year-old, is either bullied by other students, or he’s out rescuing his friend Kyoko, who is always slipping and falling down in the snow (actually, there’s a lot of that happening in the manga). His eccentric father, a known scientist, is determined to build a time machine, and it turns out he has, in the shape of a giant pipe with wings that come out of the bottom of it so it can also fly.

It doesn’t take long for the Pipe Machine to be tested, and right as it’s flying, a spaceship crashes in front of their house. It’s piloted by a dying Japanese man who hands Saburo’s father a book and tells him about a war between the humans and another race, and how he has travelled through time to try to stop it. He passes away and Saburo’s father tries to figure out the date coordinates to stop the evil race from destroying humanity.

The trio of Saburo, his dad, and Kyoko, all get ready to depart for Tokyo Bay, July 2050, but the mysterious half-naked “foreigner” latches onto the Pipe Machine and tries to prevent them from leaving, meanwhile asking for “The Bible” (likely the book handed to Saburo’s dad). The foreigner rides the ship (and starts breaking off parts of it) all the way up into space, and this interferes with the success of the flight.

Saburo is shot off somewhere, separated from his family and the Pipe Machine, and wakes up in a strange underground complex in front of a strangely dressed girl who looks like Kyoko, but isn’t.

It turns out Saburo’s arrived a bit too early–April instead of July–and he’s all alone except for the people living in this complex. He attempts to leave and when he’s topside, he’s greeted by ashy, black air and robots asking for his identification. Tokyo Bay is hardly visible, and there’s no sign of life.

So now we’re in a myriad of mysteries–what’s Saburo going to do now that he’s on his own and separated from his family? Will they find him? Who are the people in the underground complex? What happened to everyone in Tokyo? What is wrong with the 21st century?

Saburo opts to stay with the people in the underground, who reluctantly welcome him after accusing him of coming from Yamanote, the wealthy hub of what remains of Tokyo. The mysterious girl, Kanata, takes Saburo to the Professor, who informs Saburo of what has happened to the world in the decades that have passed.

The hole in the ozone layer grew until there was no more ozone to protect us from the sun’s UV rays , and there was a mass die-out and loss of necessities worldwide. To try to protect themselves from the UV rays, mankind built these facilities all over to produce a special type of smoke that blocks out the sun, but makes the air ashy and hard to breathe. There is something special in the particles of the smoke that allows the protection from the sun, but in exchange, it’s cold and dark. Most of humanity went underground or hid away because of this.

The Professor believes Saburo really has come from the past, and officially takes him in. The story progresses further and the manga volume ends with a mysterious shot of a crash-landed Pipe Machine.

This is a bit of a bizarre little story, with things happening quickly. But I enjoyed myself! I particularly like the art. I’m used to the gorgeous aesthetics required of BL manga (the whole “beautiful man” thing) but the art here is quite expressive and sometimes over-the-top, which I liked. While character designs may look simplistic at times, Umihara does a great job at depicting emotion and absurdity.

I wasn’t sure about reading this manga at first because I worried it would cross the line into total nonsense (in a bad way) but it didn’t. It’s goofy, but also has some interesting ideas. I still don’t quite get why the spaceship looks like a pipe, and I may never know the answer. What I am looking forward to is seeing how Saburo survives in this post-apocalyptic world and if he can reunite with his family.

I plan to keep reading this series as it comes out. There’s too much I want to know.

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The Pipe Machine Volumes 1-2 will be available in digital on March 31 and in print June 30 from Manga Mavericks Books. Preorder the digital here and the print version here.